In his Parisian studio, painter, engraver and illustrator Clarence Gagnon was well versed in small-format pictures that required laborious and sedentary work. It was a far cry from the plein air painting he practised in Baie-Saint-Paul, Charlevoix, and its surrounding area, capturing countless scenes from his beloved country in summer and winter. The small sketches on wooden panels that he brought back to Paris were no more than 20 by 25 centimetres, but they contained all the details, movement and atmosphere to create larger paintings or miniature compositions such as his illustrations for Maria Chapdelaine.

The format of Log Drivers is not much larger than the monotype that would be used for the final illustration. Gagnon thus succeeded in translating the strength of the main figures in the foreground (there are three in the study compared to two in the monotype) by a very skilful play of diagonals, and in rendering the animation of the dangerous task of the log drivers who, in the spring, ran on the half-submerged trunks to break the dams with their pike poles. This study is a valuable testament to Gagnon’s creative process for one of the most celebrated illustrated works in Canadian art history.

We thank Michèle Grandbois, co-author of Clarence Gagnon, 1881 – 1942: Dreaming the Landscape, for contributing the above essay, translated from the French.